[HN Gopher] Show HN: 3D Terrain simulation for hiking, skiing etc.
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Show HN: 3D Terrain simulation for hiking, skiing etc.
I'm working on a GPS track visualizer for quite some time. It
shines in hilly and mountaineous terrain (where a 3D view makes
more sense), but it also offers quite a lot of Strava-like features
(statistics etc.). You can upload your GPX and FIT files manually,
or sync directly with Garmin, Coros and Polar. See
https://cubetrek.com for the live app and check out some examples
there. It's free and opens source. Also, anyone who likes to work
with 3D visualizations (especially Babylon.js), let me know if you
like to help polish this thing further.
Author : folli
Score : 86 points
Date : 2025-01-10 21:08 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| folli wrote:
| If anyone wants to tinker with the Babylon.js code for the 3D
| visualizations, I made a standalone, sandbox-like repo, which is
| much easier to set up:
|
| https://github.com/r-follador/CubeTrek_Babylon
| Mainsail wrote:
| I'll try it on my ski tour tomorrow!
| folli wrote:
| Don't forget to share the link ;)
| Stevvo wrote:
| The 3D terrain stuff in FATMAP was great. I don't get why Strava
| killed it.
| folli wrote:
| Wasn't there some kind of plan to integrate it in Strava?
| internetter wrote:
| integrate really means "reimplement it but worse"
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| No announcement has ever been made about the integration of
| FATMAP into Strava. The only announcement was that FATMAP
| would be discontinued.
|
| Strava has been stagnating for several years now in terms of
| functionality. The last two evolutions I remember are the
| introduction of the dark theme, which has been requested for
| years, and the AI coaching tips, which are unbelievably bad.
|
| Personally, I'd like to see more competition in the field of
| sports apps. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find
| interesting activities in the Strava feed. There is little or
| no possibility of editorialization (highlighting certain
| contents, collections, etc.).
|
| It's very difficult to find a friend's activity if it's more
| than a week old. Would you like to know if anyone has made it
| over the pass at this time of year? Fuck you, here are some
| Zwift activities.
| barnabee wrote:
| > No announcement has ever been made about the integration
| of FATMAP into Strava. The only announcement was that
| FATMAP would be discontinued.
|
| This isn't true at all.
|
| The original posts on their own sites are no longer up
| (though they are likely on archive.org), but you can see
| from the articles that followed the press release that they
| were quite explicit about this.
|
| For example on TechCrunch[0]:
|
| > The ultimate long-term goal for Strava is to integrate
| Fatmap's core platform into Strava itself, but that will be
| a resource-intensive endeavor that won't happen overnight.
| And that is why Strava is working to create a single sign-
| on (SSO) integration in the near-term, meaning that
| subscribers will be able to access the full Fatmap feature-
| set by logging into the Fatmap app with their Strava
| credentials.
|
| > While Strava and Fatmap will remain separate products for
| now, Strava said that it will decide in the future whether
| Fatmap will live on as a standalone product once the
| technical integration has taken place.
|
| > CEO and co-founder Michael Horvath, who stepped down in
| 2013 before returning as head honcho six years later, said
| that the Fatmap acquisition is part of Strava's "ongoing
| investment to provide a best-in-class digital experience"
| for those seeking an active lifestyle. "Where other map
| platforms have been designed for navigating streets and
| cities, Fatmap built a map designed specifically to help
| people explore the outdoors," Horvath told TechCrunch in a
| Q&A. "We will enable Fatmap technology in all of Strava's
| services, empowering anyone to discover and plan an outdoor
| experience with curated local guides, points of interest
| and safety information."
|
| > In terms of timescales, Strava said that it has set up a
| dedicated team tasked with integrating Fatmap, and it
| anticipates this to start showing up inside Strava from
| around mid-2023. The company was also quick to stress that
| Fatmap's tech will be available to both free and paid-for
| Strava members, though certain features relating to maps,
| discovery and route-planning will be reserved for paying
| subscribers.
|
| > Strava provided TechCrunch with the following mockup
| images to give an idea of what Fatmap might look like
| inside a future incarnation of Strava.
|
| [0] https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/24/strava-acquires-
| fatmap-a-3...
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| They have withdrawn this announcement. The only remaining
| mentions are on the page announcing the closure and the
| transfer of payments to Strava:
|
| https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/26949702911117-...
| barnabee wrote:
| They haven't withdrawn everything. I've only just noticed
| this, but the Strava help centre still states that
| "FATMAP's 3D maps and other features will be built into
| Strava to create the world's best platform for planning,
| navigating, and sharing outdoor adventures"[0].
|
| There's also a recent comment on an Instagram post[1]
| about a supposedly recent response from Strava the
| commenter received that, if accurate, provides some hope.
|
| It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of it, but
| at this point I also rather hope that something more
| open, hackable, etc. rises from the ashes of FATMAP.
|
| [0] https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/26949702911117-...
|
| [1] https://www.instagram.com/oak_app/p/DDe3tNqs95k/
| SteveVeilStream wrote:
| It's hard to overstate how passionate people were about FATMAP
| and how crushed they were when it was killed. Putting revenue
| aside, Strava should have found a way to keep it alive to
| maintain goodwill.
| barnabee wrote:
| I have never missed an app or service like I miss FATMAP. I
| still search in vain for a half decent replacement every time
| I go into the mountains and nothing yet comes close.
|
| I'd have paid quite a lot more than they were charging to
| keep it.
| folli wrote:
| What did you mainly use Fatmap for? Planning, navigating
| during the trip or viewing after the trip?
| barnabee wrote:
| Planning and navigating, the key features for me were:
|
| - high res satellite imagery available for both summer
| and winter
|
| - aspect and gradient shading
|
| - routes and tracks shared and discoverable with
| description, altitude graph etc. for freeride routes, ski
| tours, hikes (great for visiting somewhere new)
|
| I also enjoyed things like sharing the link to the 3D
| overview with friends after an epic day, but that's both
| more easily replaced and less valuable to me.
|
| I'm muddling through with a whole host of apps (Maps3D,
| Outmap, CalTopo etc.) and have tried and given up on
| still more, but FATMAP was so much better than any
| current alternative, particularly for skiing. (Mostly in
| Europe, if that makes a difference.)
| barnabee wrote:
| This was so unbelievably disappointing that it was the final
| straw that caused me to cancel my paid Strava subscription and
| to delete and stop using the app entirely.
|
| I know plenty of people who've done the same, because of one or
| other wrongheaded decision from Strava.
| TinkersW wrote:
| How do you switch it to American? (ie feet/miles)
| folli wrote:
| Look for the Settings (the cogwheel button on the top right)
| mtreis86 wrote:
| Any plan to increase the dimensions the 3d map can be generated
| for? This would be fun for motorcycle ADV trips but we tend to
| exceed the 100km squared limit.
| folli wrote:
| The limit was set in place to prevent the browser from crashing
| in low-end devices, as the full model is loaded and displayed
| as a single entity in full detail (in contrast Google Earth
| etc. uses multiple level of details, depending on the viewing
| distance).
|
| Server side there's no problem to increase the model size,
| maybe I can add this as an option.
| nox101 wrote:
| Very cool.
|
| I know this is not a related solution but just want to remind
| people that Google maps has a 3D mode. I do wonder if they are
| planning to get rid of it because they are burying it deep. you
| have to turn on "Globe View" and "Satellite"
|
| https://i.postimg.cc/kMRMKvjc/Screenshot-2025-01-11-at-10-59...
| folli wrote:
| The replay mode (example: https://cubetrek.com/replay/6338)
| also uses Google Earth data. However, I'm a bit hesitant to
| further work on this, as I don't know if Google will suddenly
| pull the plug or charge extraorbitant amounts for usage. I
| consider it more of a proof of concept at this stage.
| SteveVeilStream wrote:
| I love the examples on your site.
|
| I tried it out but got this message: "Error Track does not
| contain Timing data."
|
| It would be awesome if it could work on GPX files that don't
| contain timing data. I often want to visualize a planned route or
| verify if a GPX file I have downloaded from somewhere has any
| obvious problems.
| folli wrote:
| Thanks for testing!
|
| The requirement for timing data is in order to calculate all of
| the statistics. Also, from a perspective of CubeTrek being a
| kind of diary of your activities, route only files do not
| really fit into thw picture.
|
| But perhaps it makes sense to allow them on the anonymous
| upload for the purpose you mention.
| SteveVeilStream wrote:
| Yeah I would be fine with almost all of the statistics
| missing. I'm just one datapoint and I might be a bad one.
| Most of my GPS use is in the planning phase. I could also
| imagine people wanting to share visualizations of their route
| without the times because they don't want people saying they
| are slow.
|
| Now I do have a lot of files that include the time... but
| they are all saved as GDB files. Do you know an easy way for
| me to extract the GPX file with timing information from the
| GDB without Garmin MapSource (These are old and I no longer
| have MapSource installed on my computer.)
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Yeah it is a bit odd to have it fail on lack of timestamps.
|
| One workaround would be to add dummy timestamps. There seem
| to be a few options floating around, like
| https://github.com/mikaello/gpxfaketimer (never used, no
| idea how well it'll work)
| lispisok wrote:
| This is really cool. I dont like the fire effect on the 3d view
| though.
| folli wrote:
| Is it too nervous? What would you suggest?
| kbrackbill wrote:
| This is really cool, just tried it with a recent hike (
| https://cubetrek.com/view/362602 ). Strava has a really basic 3d
| visualization but it's from a fixed angle which isn't very
| useful. Being able to move around and the replay mode are really
| neat. I was confused a little about the flame effect on the route
| before I realized it was matching my mouse on the other charts.
|
| I second the request to be able to visualize routes without
| timing, it'd be awesome to take some route I have planned out in
| caltopo and view it here.
|
| Also it seems like not quite what you're aiming for but I already
| have a few places I can (and sometimes do) upload these for the
| sharing/community/diary aspect (strava and peakery) and it would
| be cool to have some sort of integration where I could visualize
| activities from there without having to download/upload the GPX.
| Maybe I really need some kind of GPX multiplexer to upload stuff
| from my GPS to all the different places it could go :).
| folli wrote:
| Your hike looks cool, thanks for sharing!
|
| Getting the data from Strava is something I really don't wanna
| touch with a ten foot pole. Talking to other devs, using their
| API is the stuff of nightmares because they keep changing their
| ToS very frequently and recently they have become extremely
| restrictive on what you can do with "their" (actually the
| user's) activity data.
|
| I never heard of Peakery, need to look into that.
|
| What you can do, however, is to directly link your Garmin,
| Coros and Polar account to automatically upload data.
| btbuildem wrote:
| For actual hikes / backcountry tours though (not just reviewing a
| recorded track, but helping plan before and orient in the terrain
| during) -- I've found an app creatively called "Maps 3D" to work
| best. You can download maps for offline use (handy in those
| places with no cell reception) and those often include common
| trails in the area.
| izzymiller wrote:
| Ah! I've been tinkering on a very similar project off and on for
| years now. This is so awesome to see-- really nice work. I've
| just never had time to actually polish mine off. I think the
| backend for processing new activities is broken at the moment,
| but the old demo activities are still around.
|
| Ex: https://contour.run/home?activityId=36948814953
|
| I've been using three.js and react-three-fiber for it. happy to
| swap notes! nice work :)
| __mharrison__ wrote:
| Would love to see a casual game (on Switch) where I could upload
| ski runs and "ski" them...
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